At two o’clock the next afternoon, Richard arrived at the meeting point on time—a deserted gas station at the foot of Vinewood Hills.
Franklin was already there, leaning against a deep red Benefactor Schafter with a soda in his hand.
Although this car was an old model from ten years ago, it was well-maintained, and the engine sounded powerful.
“Lamar got this?” Richard walked around the car once.
“He said he ‘borrowed’ it.” Franklin was expressionless.
“For how long?”
“Permanently borrowed.”
Richard laughed.
“That’s not bad.”
No sooner had he finished speaking than Lamar came tearing in in his beat-up pickup truck, nearly slamming into the gas station pillar.
He jumped out, holding a pair of binoculars.
“I’ve scouted it out!
Tonight’s race starts below the Observatory, follows the mountain road to the coast, and then loops back.
It’s about eight kilometers, and the opponents are a bunch of rich kids driving modified Japanese cars.”
“What about the rules?”
“No rules.
First one to the finish line wins.
Oh, except you can’t kill anyone—that’s what the organizer said.
Last time, someone shot at an opponent’s tires and got chased and beaten by everyone there.”
Franklin frowned.
“Our car is slower than theirs.”
Richard opened his phone, pretending to check the weather, while actually pulling up the game map in his mind.
He had run this track at least a hundred times—the mountain road had three consecutive hairpin turns, there was a construction zone in the middle where you could take a shortcut, and at the end of the coastal straightaway, there was a small ramp that could save two hundred meters if you jumped it.
“Listen,” Richard crouched down and drew a map on the ground with a twig.
“Starting from the Observatory, don’t slow down too much for the first hairpin turn; use the drainage ditch to corner.
In the middle section—right here, there’s a gap in the fence where you can cut directly to the service road below and bypass two slow corners.
On the coastal straightaway, don’t keep the pedal to the metal; steer right before the end, and there’s a dirt road that can cut two hundred meters ahead of the finish line.”
Lamar listened, dumbfounded.
“How the hell do you know it so clearly?”
“I rode my bike through it last night.” Richard replied, his expression unchanged.
Franklin looked at the route map on the ground and nodded slowly.
“We can try it.”
At nine o’clock that night, the parking lot below the Observatory was packed with modified cars.
Japan tubes, subwoofers, smoke grenades—the group of twenty-somethings was even more flamboyant than their cars.
The organizer was a bald man wearing a gold chain, shouting the rules through a megaphone.
Richard spotted the main opponent at a glance—a bright orange Declasse Sabre with a wide-body kit and a spoiler as high as an airplane.
The owner was a young guy in a racing suit, with two heavily made-up girls sitting next to him.
“That car has at least four hundred horsepower,” Franklin said in a low voice.
“But we have brains.” Richard patted his shoulder.
Lamar was rubbing his hands nervously.
“I’m just saying, what if we lose?
I bet two hundred bucks on us winning.”
“You bet our money on us?” Richard asked, incredulous.
“That’s called confidence!
Do you understand confidence?”
When the starting flag dropped, Richard sat in the passenger seat, feeling unusually calm.
Franklin’s start was steady; he didn’t fight for first place with those rich kids, maintaining fifth position.
At the first hairpin turn, the three cars in front were bunched together, their brake lights lighting up in a sea of red.
Following Richard’s instructions, Franklin didn’t slam on the brakes, but instead gave a light touch to the handbrake, swinging the rear end out and drifting past the wall on the inside line.
“Nice!” Richard shouted.
Lamar was screaming over the radio from the pickup truck behind: “Ahhh!
Your rear bumper was only two centimeters from the wall!”
“Shut up, Lamar, don’t distract Franklin!”
In the middle section of the mountain road, only two cars remained in front.
The orange Sabre was in first, and the second was a blue Karin Sultan.
Franklin followed closely behind the Sultan, closing the gap a little more with every exit from a turn.
Richard looked at the utility poles by the roadside and found the gap.
“Fifty meters ahead, turn right, down the service road!”
Franklin didn’t hesitate and yanked the steering wheel, turning onto the gravel road.
The car shook as if it were falling apart, but it did indeed bypass two corners that required slowing down to forty kilometers per hour.
By the time they burst out from the other end of the service road, they had already passed the blue Sultan and were less than fifty meters behind the orange Sabre.
“He noticed,” Franklin said.
The driver of the orange Sabre was clearly a veteran; he started weaving left and right to block their line, preventing them from overtaking.
There was one kilometer left on the coastal straightaway, and the speed had already hit one hundred and sixty.
Richard took a deep breath.
“Trust me, take the dirt road.
There’s a small ramp at the end; fly over it, and the landing point is right in front of the finish line.”
“Fly over it?” A scream came through Lamar’s radio.
“Fly—are you sure you don’t mean flying into the Pacific Ocean?”
Franklin didn’t speak, but he glanced at Richard.
In that one second of eye contact, Richard read three words: I trust you.
He jerked the steering wheel hard, and the car charged up the dirt ramp on the right, all four wheels leaving the ground at once.
The feeling of weightlessness made Richard’s stomach turn.
He gripped the grab handle tightly, watching the streetlights outside the window spinning, the ocean surface shimmering with silver light in the distance.
“Ahhhhhh—” Lamar’s scream was no longer human.
“Bang!”
The car slammed onto the hard ground, the suspension giving a painful groan, but all four wheels were still turning, and the steering was still under control.
The landing spot was less than a hundred meters from the finish line, while the orange Sabre was still struggling in the turn.
Franklin floored the gas pedal, the engine tachometer needle redlining, and they crossed the finish line at one hundred and eighty kilometers per hour.
It was quiet for a second.
Then Richard opened the car door, bent over and dry-heaved twice, then looked up and smiled.
“We won.”
Franklin leaned back in his seat, eyes closed, the curve of his mouth much wider than yesterday.
He reached out and patted Richard’s shoulder, the force heavy, as if saying, “Well done.”
Lamar’s pickup didn’t arrive until three minutes later.
When he rushed out, his face was pale, and his finger pointing at Richard was trembling.
“You—you—you just took ten years off my life!”
“We won two thousand bucks!” Richard shook the envelope in his hand.
Lamar’s expression changed instantly.
“Good brother!
Let’s fly again next time!”
The bald organizer walked over, looked at their car, then at Richard.
“Richard?
You won my event on your first try?
Interesting.
There’s a race every Friday from now on, with double the prize money.
You in?”
“We’re in.” Richard accepted for Franklin.
On the way back, the three of them were squeezed into the Sultan, with Lamar taking up the entire backseat, playing an incredibly terrible rap song.
Franklin drove, and Richard leaned against the window, letting the wind blow on him.
His phone vibrated, and the system prompted:
[Mission [Street Start] completed.
Reward: Driving skill improved, mini-map markers upgraded—added [Point of Interest] markers (hidden weapon crates, security blind spots, etc.).
Favorability change: Franklin +42, current favorability 70.
Lamar +15, current favorability 50.]
[New mission triggered: [Three’s Company].
Increase favorability with the three protagonists to over 80 to unlock team skills.]
Richard turned off his phone and suddenly remembered something.
“By the way, Franklin, do you know someone named Michael?”
“Michael?
Which Michael?” Franklin asked.
“A middle-aged guy who lives in Rockford Hills, used to do some…
not-so-legal things.”
Franklin thought for a moment and shook his head.
“Don’t know him.
In a place like Rockford Hills, I can’t even get past the security guards.”
Richard didn’t press any further.
It wasn’t time yet.
But he knew it wouldn’t be long before that bald old man in the gray suit made his appearance.